


the observation of grief

by notbecauseofvictories



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 09:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3375827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notbecauseofvictories/pseuds/notbecauseofvictories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>tauriel in exile, and a conversation</p>
            </blockquote>





	the observation of grief

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [nadipieart's picture of tauriel with short hair](http://nadipieart.tumblr.com/post/110766602312/after-the-botfa-tauriel-cuts-her-hair-and-travels)

Her hands were sure and still as she plaited her hair. She had trembled, watching as Dáin wept over the bodies of his kin and gathered them up for burial; she had shuddered, watching the last of her people disappear into Mirkwood, abandoning their exiled sister without a word. Something in her had quavered at the desperation of the Dalish, driving her to lend her strength and skill where they were needed. In the days since the battle, she had shaken herself to rubble and dust, and so there was nothing left in her to tremble; still and hollow as she was, swept-clean.   


She used a length of string, salvaged from her cleaved bow, to tie off her braid.

For a moment, she admired the long burnished coil of it, fingering the end--she had not worn braids since she was a child; it stirred memories of sitting at her naneth's knee, fidgeting beneath those beloved hands. (She wondered, suddenly, if the mother who made her son promise to return from a terrible quest had also made him sit, and woven those bright beads into his wild hair.)

Tauriel exhaled, and reached for her knife. Taking her braid in one hand, she rested the blade against the plait. She had only just begun the prayer to Nienna when she felt the sudden chill of foreign eyes.

 __ _"Ádarem i ne menel,"_ she recited rotely, listening for foot-fall. There was only the sound of the bats, whisking by overhead in the darkness, and the creaking windsong of the tree she had taken shelter beneath; Mirkwood settling into night a few yards away. "-- _aer ess lîn aen--_ "The newly-exposed nape of her neck felt a dangerous taunt, even with the mighty oak at her back. How close could they be, and what manner or creature made no noise at its approach? " _árdh lîn tolo--_ "  


There was a faint crunch to her left. She launched to her feet and whipped around, knife out--

The hand that caught her wrist was broad, its pewter signet ring silvered in the moonlight. It had stilled her knife right over its owner's throat, the tip of the blade almost-grazing the silver embroidery of his collar. 

"My king," Tauriel said, after a long moment.

"Am I, still?" Thranduil asked. His tone was cool, near mocking, but his gaze searched her face with directness that she was not accustomed to. 

"You are as you were," Tauriel answered carefully. "I do not make kings."

"Yet it seems you would unmake them." Thranduil's nails bit into her wrist as he lowered her hand, moving the knife from his throat. The air was cold when he released her from his grip. "Two times in thrice as many days you have striven to kill me, O Captain."

Tauriel was silent, unsure if Thranduil was offering an opportunity to defend her actions, or laying a trap for her to further seal her doom. Exile was a terrible fate, but the prospect of deathless imprisonment chilled her bones.

Thranduil would not stop gazing at her. "What need have you for a knife while praying to Núri?" he asked suddenly. "Is your exile so unendurable?"

There was a cruel taunt latent in the question, but Tauriel kept her hand soft around the knife's hilt, her expression blank and smooth as night. "It is custom to cut off your hair and cast it away, in lamentation of one lost to you."

"For a dwarf, Tauriel?" he asked, a horrible pity oozing in his voice. Tauriel ought to have bristled, made rejoinder (had he not found her, weeping? had he not said ' _it is real'_?) but she felt nothing but a hollow pang--she could not be shaken, there was nothing in her to tremble and feel shame.

"Yes. For a dwarf."

Her easy acquiescence seemed to startle him, and he retreated into silence. (The wind picked up, and the oak groaned above them.) Before she could think overmuch on it, she turned the knife over in her hand, and held it out to him, hilt-first. "You may make the cut, if it would please you."

"You would trust me with a knife so near your throat, Captain?"

"I have never sought the death nor dishonor of my king," she said, meeting his gaze. Let him read the truth in her own. "I can only hope he has the same high regard for me."

Thranduil smiled humorlessly, and plucked the knife from her waiting hand. "Turn," he ordered.

Tauriel breathed, and turned until she was facing away, looking out towards the scattered fires of Dale, the faint outline of the Lonely Mountain against the darkness. There was a long, tense moment when she was not certain--

But then Thranduil's hand was pulling her braid back gently, and she could feel the back-and-forth scrape of the knife as it sliced through the hair. Tauriel whispered her prayer to Nienna, feeling very young and foolish to be doing so before her king. " _Dan leithio ammen ed ulug,"_ she added at the last, hoping that Aulë would look kindly on a line of Sindarin, said for one of his sons.  


_(Âmrâlime_ , the only word in the Dwarvish tongue Tauriel knew--had only guessed, had looked into those love-limned eyes bright with hope and not needed translation--)

She choked on a sob, lifting a hand to her mouth. (It seemed there was still something in her to be shaken.)

For the briefest of moments, the knife stilled--but then it carried on, scraping at her braid. Thranduil cleared his throat. 

"After--" the words seemed to strangle him, and he fell silent. Tauriel wished vainly to see his face--though he kept it imperious as carven stone, there were cracks and fissures one could read, if one knew them. Finally, Thranduil said simply: "I cut so closely to the scalp I bled. I wore it thus for years."

It was the most she had heard him ever speak of the queen, whose shade still haunted the halls of Mirkwood. Tauriel stared blindly ahead, at the stars rising cold above the hills. The world seemed narrowed to the tug of the knife, the faint scraping noise it made as it sliced through her braid. 

"I remember you from that time," she said quietly. "I came with my kin from Amonlas, to beg shelter and protection from the Wainriders. You wore white samite, and your shoulders looked like blood on snow."

Thranduil made no sound, nor did the knife falter. A few long minutes later, he reached around her shoulder and placed the shorn-off braid in her palm. Tauriel swallowed the ache in her throat, the one that threatened to blossom into another sob. "My thanks," she said, turning to face Thranduil. 

He was standing very close to her, close enough for her to smell the cloves on his breath and see the way moonlight revealed the scarring beneath the glamour. (Here was another reason to tremble, she thought.) "You are grateful for such a little thing?" he asked.

"I thank you for not cutting my throat. That is no little thing."

The corner of his lips twitched. "I thought to return the favor," he said, holding the knife out to her, blade first. ( _All is the testing of gold by the fire, impurities burned away or false metals revealed--_ he had said that, hadn't he? Or Legolas had parroted his words to her, echoes of a darker voice in the prince's own bright one.)

She took the knife. The blade bit into her palm, but Thranduil's eyes warmed ever so slightly.

"I have been taking shelter in Dale," Tauriel said, stepping away to sheath the knife. (There was a fine scarlet line on the sharp edge.) Coiling her severed braid so it fit in one of her pouches, she forced herself to say, "But there is little reason to remain here further, and torture myself with Mirkwood's closeness. It would be--I would be grateful if you sent my belongings to the house of my father."

Thranduil's face was inscrutable. He said nothing.

Tauriel nodded, then dipped into a gracious bow. "Farewell, my king," she said, straightening. "I hope you find another who can hold a blade to your throat, and not cut. It seems kings should have such a one at their side."

But no sooner had she turned to leave than Thranduil called, "Captain?"

Tauriel turned back, her close-cropped hair brushing her ears. Her head felt lighter--she could only imagine what her kinsmen would say when she returned to them and saw so obvious a mark of grief; the questions that would be asked, the dismay she would see written in Ada's eyes. She had committed treason for a dwarf who had not lived out the day--folly, such folly, and she would have done it all again, without hesitation.

She wished Thranduil would stop calling her 'Captain'. It was the thing she would miss most.

"My king?" she prompted.

Thranduil was gazing at her. Finally, he said, "We expect to find you at your post, come the morning," Tauriel blinked, certain she had misheard-- "We lost too many on that battlefield. For the sake of our defense, even those who transgress against their king must be forgiven and welcomed back into the fold. If they are appropriately contrite, of course."

Tauriel attempted to look appropriately contrite. Judging by Thranduil's derisive scoff, she only somewhat succeeded.

(The people whispered, of course they whispered--Tauriel had aimed an arrow between the king's eyes. and little more than a week later she was returned to her place of honor. The well-meaning murmured about ambition and strength, the allure of one who would speak truth to power. The malicious mentioned how the king's silver head followed the Captain of the Guard as she passed through his hall, like a compass pointing true north.

She wears her hair cropped short, and heeds none of them.)


End file.
